Curiosity endows the people who have it with a generosity in argument and a serenity in their own mode of life which springs from their cheerful willingness to let life take the form it will.
Interpretation
Curiosity leads to open-mindedness and a peaceful acceptance of life's unpredictability.
Alistair Cooke's quote suggests that curiosity enhances one's ability to engage in arguments generously and maintain a calm lifestyle. This state of mind is rooted in a cheerful acceptance of life’s unpredictable nature, fostering a willingness to embrace whatever comes, rather than resisting or trying to control it.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the value of curiosity in education.
More than anything else, though, to anyone who would write about it, golf offers a four-hour drama in two acts, which becomes memorable even in the tape-recorded reminiscenses of old champs, and which - in the hands of someone like Herb Wind - can become a piece of war correspondence as artfully controlled as Alan Morehead's account of Gallipoli.
Man has an incurable habit of not fulfilling the prophecies of his fellow men.
It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce, a pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity of the Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it.
A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it.
Liberty is the luxury of self-discipline, that those nations historically who have failed to discipline themselves have had discipline imposed by others.
It is a wonderful tribute to the game or to the dottiness of the people who play it that for some people somewhere there is no such thing as an insurmountable obstacle, an unplayable course, the wrong time of the day or year.
The answer is that we are not helpless in the face of our first impressions. They may bubble up from the unconscious - from behind a locked door inside of our brain - but just because something is outside of awareness doesn't mean it's outside of control.
'There are no easy pickings.' That would be a more accurate, less dramatic statement than 'There's no such thing as a free lunch.'
In order to survive in a very small tribe, you needed to know how to do lots of things for yourself: how to make your tools, how to get food, and how to make your clothes - things most of us today don't need to know. The only thing I need to survive is to know history.
Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.
Those that have done nothing in life, are not qualified to judge of those that have done little
Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective. So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle everyday? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything anther than galloping neurosis?
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